WILL Gollop became the first three-time winner of the British
Rallycross Grand Prix when he led a British 1-2-3 in yesterday's
Autoglass-sponsored event at Brands Hatch. The Kent driver powered a
twin turbo-charged Metro 6R4 to victory in the eleventh running of the
race, adding to successes in the grands prix of 1988 and 1989.
Former Lotus Formula One driver Martin Donnelly continued his racing
rehabilitation after a near fatal accident in the Spanish Grand Prix two
years ago. He took part in a Vauxhall Nova challenge supporting the main
event and finished fifth after a spin on the first corner of the final.
MURRAY Grierson rounded off a barren rally season with his first
outright victory on the final event of the year. The former Scottish
champion won yesterday's Border Cars Galloway Hills rally in South-west
Scotland. This was Grierson's home event and one which he has won only
once before.
A strong Northern Ireland contingent boosted the entry to 80 cars,
which lined up on Gatehouse of Fleet's main street to start the 38-stage
mile event. Heading the field was last year's winner, Mervyn Hill, the
Northern Ireland champion having narrowly defeated Grierson exactly one
year before.
Unfortunately, Hill's unique four-wheel drive Mazda RX7 punctured in
the first of the five special stages, losing over a minute and ruining
all hopes of victory. But at the end of the first stage the visitors
were still hopeful of carrying the spoils across the water when James
Leckey emerged with the fastest time.
That was all the incentive Grierson needed, as he rocketed through the
next stage to grab the lead by six seconds. Thereafter Grierson
stretched his lead all the way to the finish to win by almost a minute.
This was only Leckey's second visit to a Scottish forest rally and
second overall was one place higher than his first visit to these same
forests a month earlier. Aberdeen's Brian Lyall finished third, ahead of
Edinburgh's Gordon Boyd, but the highly fancied Mazdas of Ken Jones and
Phil Walker failed to make their mark. Both the Welshmen and the
Killearn driver were stranded in the middle of stage three, one with a
broken gearbox and the other with a blown head gasket. John Gray also
struck trouble but at least he finished in sixth place after having
dropped from a certain third overall on the final stage when his Ford
Cosworth developed an electrical fault. Results:
1, M Grierson/D Redpath (MG Metro 6R4) 39min. 52sec.; 2, J Leckey/C
Roy (Ford Sierra Cosworth) 40-47; 3, B Lyall/D McIntosh (Ford Sierra
Cosworth) 42-09; 4, G Boyd/K Crombie (Ford Sierra Cosworth) 42-13; 5, J
Christie/G Law (Ford Escort) 42-24; 6, J Gray/F Loudon (Ford Sierra
Cosworth) 42-27; 7, I Rock/I Kenny (Ford Fiesta) 43-15; 8, M Erwin/G
McCartney (Talbot Avenger) 43-33; 9, S Mullen/G Bryden (Ford Escort)
43-37; 10, K Shaw/V Fergus (Ford Escort) 44-08.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article